The Strongest Boy in the World
Digital version – browse, print or download
Can't see the preview?
Click here!
How to print the digital edition of Books for Keeps: click on this PDF file link - click on the printer icon in the top right of the screen to print.
BfK Newsletter
Receive the latest news & reviews direct to your inbox!
This issue’s cover illustration is from All I Said Was by Michael Morpurgo and Ross Collins. Thanks to Barrington Stoke for their help with this March cover and to Simon and Schuster for their support of the Authorgraph interview with Sophie McKenzie.
Digital Edition
By clicking here you can view, print or download the fully artworked Digital Edition of BfK 205 March 2014 .
The Strongest Boy in the World
Jessica Souhami alters the ages of the two main characters in her rendering of a Japanese tale first recorded in the 13th Century. Here a strong but skinny boy, Kaito and Hana, a surprisingly strong girl, replace the adult warrior and widow teacher.
Kaito longs to be a famous wrestler and having seen a poster advertising a tournament in Kyoto city, determines to try his luck. On his way to the city, Kaito encounters and teases a girl, coming off second best. She is amused to learn of his ambition and offers to toughen him up. For three weeks, he undergoes a strict regime of energetic and powerful exercises and a diet of body-building rice plus fish and meat stews. Kaito is then dispatched to Kyoto where his puny appearance greatly amuses the huge and famous wrestlers gathered for the tournament.
Next day however, Kaito wipes the smiles off those warriors’ faces, overpowering them one by one to become the champion. An impressed Emperor then offers him an opportunity to live at the court but Kaito declines preferring to return to his home. En route though, he stops to deliver his prize to the girl who helped him fulfill his dreams and there receives a welcome lift that reminds him who really holds the power.
It’s good to have a female character with such strength of mind and body and at the same time, a recognition of male strength and determination, ensuring that the book should please both girls and boys equally. Souhami’s appropriately energetic, bold collage pictures bring out the humour of the tale admirably.